The Fair

Parish

Chapter 17: The Fair

The Concordia Parish Fair occupies the fairgrounds on the north side of Vidalia, a fifteen-acre parcel of land that is used for the fair in July and for nothing in the other eleven months, the eleven months of nothing being the parcel's rest, the land lying fallow the way farmland lies fallow, accumulating what it needs for the next use, the next use being the fair, the fair being the annual gathering, the parish's annual declaration of itself to itself, the declaration that says: This is what we are. This is what we produce. This is what we raise. This is what we offer.

The fairgrounds have a livestock barn, a show arena, a midway area where the carnival rides are set up by a company from Shreveport that travels the parish fair circuit every summer, the circuit being the geography of summer entertainment in rural Louisiana, the rides and the games and the cotton candy and the funnel cakes moving from parish to parish the way a traveling preacher moves from church to church, bringing the same show to different audiences, the audiences being the parishes that are different and the same, different in their names and their histories and the same in their need for the fair, the need being: a night out, a gathering, a place where the parish can see itself assembled.

Clem arrives at the fairgrounds at 6 AM on the first day. He is the veterinary inspector. This is not a title he sought. This is a title that was given to him by the parish fair board fourteen years ago when Dr. Arceneaux retired and the fair board needed a veterinarian to inspect the livestock and Clem was the veterinarian and the being-the-veterinarian was the qualification, the qualification being: You are here, you are willing, you are able, the three criteria that the parish uses for all its appointments, the criteria that are the rural version of the credentialing process, the process being: Who is available? And: Will they do it? And the answers being: Clem. And: Yes.

The livestock barn is a metal structure, 120 feet long and 60 feet wide, open on the sides, the openness being the ventilation, the ventilation being essential in July when the barn's interior temperature is a function of the ambient temperature plus the body heat of the animals inside, the animals being the heat producers, each animal a furnace burning calories and producing heat, the heat adding to the July heat, the addition being the barn's specific misery, the misery of being inside a metal structure in July in Louisiana with fifty head of cattle and thirty hogs and twenty goats and fifteen sheep and the humans who brought them.

The animals are arriving. Trailers pull into the fairgrounds and back up to the barn and the animals are unloaded — the calves led by their 4-H exhibitors, the hogs pushed and prodded by their FFA handlers, the goats pulled (goats are always pulled, because goats do not go where they are led, goats go where they want to go and the pulling is the negotiation, the exhibitor pulling and the goat resisting and the resistance being the goat's contribution to the fair's entertainment).

The 4-H kids are the fair's heart. Clem knows this because Clem has watched the 4-H kids for twenty-eight years, has watched them arrive at the fair with their project animals, the animals they have raised from calves or kids or piglets, the raising being the project, the project being the lesson, and the lesson is: Care for a living thing. Feed it. Water it. Clean its pen. Monitor its health. Walk it. Halter-break it. Train it to stand for the judge. Learn its body — its conformation, its condition, its strengths and its faults. Learn what feed produces what gain. Learn what care produces what health. Learn the relationship between the giving and the receiving, the care given and the animal received, the animal being the product of the care, the care being visible in the animal's body the way the care is visible in everything — in Earl's roses, in Renee's library, in the levee's mowed grass.

The kids range from nine to eighteen. They arrive with their parents and their animals and the equipment of the show — the halters and the show sticks and the grooming supplies, the clippers and the combs and the adhesive and the paint, the equipment that transforms the project animal from the pasture version to the show version, the show version being the animal groomed and clipped and fitted and posed, the posing being the art, the exhibitor's art, the art of making the animal look its best, and the looking-its-best is the goal, and the goal is the ribbon, and the ribbon is the judge's assessment, and the assessment is: This animal is the product of good care, and the good care is the project's purpose, and the purpose has been fulfilled.

Clem's job is to inspect. He inspects each animal as it arrives. He checks the health certificate — the document issued by a veterinarian (often Clem himself, who issued the certificates last week at the farms where the animals live) that certifies the animal's health, the certification being the assurance that the animal is free of contagious disease and fit to be in proximity with other animals, the proximity being the fair's risk, the risk being the gathering of animals from different farms into one barn, the gathering creating the opportunity for disease transmission, the transmission being the thing that the inspection is meant to prevent.

He checks the animals. He runs his hands along their bodies. He looks at their eyes — clear, bright, the eyes of healthy animals. He looks at their coats — smooth, clean, the coats of animals that have been groomed and maintained. He takes temperatures when he suspects a fever. He listens to lungs when he suspects a respiratory issue. He checks hooves and feet and legs and udders and sheaths and the hundred anatomical features that constitute the health assessment, the assessment being the reading, the hands reading the body the way they always read bodies, through touch, through the knowledge that is in the fingers.

The animals pass. Most animals pass. The inspection is not a barrier but a confirmation, the confirmation that the animals that the parish has raised are healthy, that the care has been given, that the project has been completed, and the completion is the passing, and the passing is the opening, the opening of the fair, the fair beginning when the animals are in the barn and the inspection is done and the judge is on her way and the midway is opening and the parish is arriving.

A girl brings a Hereford steer to the inspection station. She is fourteen, maybe fifteen, and the steer is 1,100 pounds and the girl weighs 110, and the ratio is ten to one, the ten-to-one being the ratio that defines the exhibitor's challenge, which is: Control an animal that weighs ten times what you weigh, control it with a halter and a show stick and the training that you have given it over six months of daily handling, the handling being the relationship, the relationship being the control, the control not being dominance but partnership, the girl and the steer having reached an agreement through the daily work, the agreement being: I will lead and you will follow and the following is not submission but cooperation, and the cooperation was earned, and the earning was the project.

Her name is Jolie Thibodaux. She is Marie-Claire's niece — Genevieve's other granddaughter, the one who lives on the farm with her father, Marie-Claire's brother, the brother who raises cattle on 200 acres north of Ferriday. Clem has treated the brother's cattle. Clem has vaccinated this steer. The steer knows Clem's hands, or does not know them individually but knows the category of hands that Clem's hands belong to, the category of hands that approach and touch and sometimes inject and that the steer has learned to tolerate the way the steer tolerates all the handling, with the resignation of an animal that has been handled since birth and that accepts the handling as the condition of its life.

Clem inspects the steer. Healthy. Well-conditioned. Body score 7, which is ideal for a show animal, the score reflecting the feeding program that Jolie has followed for six months, the program that Clem helped design because the designing of feeding programs for show animals is one of the things that the parish veterinarian does, the thing that is not treatment but advice, the advice being the other service, the service that does not require the syringe but that requires the knowledge, the knowledge of nutrition and growth and body composition that the vet school taught and that the practice has refined.

"He looks good," Clem said. "You did a good job with him."

Jolie smiled. The smile was the payment. The smile of a fourteen-year-old who has been told by the veterinarian that her project animal is good, the good being the assessment that confirms the six months of work, the six months of waking early and feeding and watering and walking and grooming, the six months that are the project and the project is the lesson and the lesson is: Care produces results, and the results are visible, and the visible results are standing in the inspection station weighing 1,100 pounds and passing the veterinary inspection.

The fair opens at 5 PM. The midway lights come on — the Ferris wheel and the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Scrambler and the games and the food stands, the lights being the fair's transformation, the transformation of the fairgrounds from the daytime work (the inspecting and the grooming and the penning) to the nighttime show (the lights and the rides and the music and the crowd), the transformation being the fair's magic, the magic that a fairground performs, the magic of the ordinary becoming the extraordinary, the fifteen acres of nothing becoming the fifteen acres of everything.

The crowd arrives. The parish arrives. The people who live on the farms and the ranches and in the houses in Vidalia and Ferriday and Clayton and Monterey, the people who see each other at the co-op and the feed store and the church and the library, these people arrive at the fair and the arriving is the gathering, the gathering being the parish assembled, the parish seeing itself whole.

Clem sees them. He sees Earl Fontenot, who has come to look at the cattle, to stand by the pens and observe the animals the way he observes his own, with the critical eye of a man who has spent fifty years looking at cattle and who can assess a calf's conformation from across a barn, the assessment being the instinct, the instinct being the accumulated knowledge of fifty years of looking, the looking being the practice. Earl does not enter the livestock barn. He stands at the entrance and looks in, the looking-in being the visit, the visit being sufficient, the sufficiency being Earl's July concession to the heat, the heat that is in the barn being worse than the heat outside the barn, and Earl at seventy-two does not tolerate the heat the way Earl at thirty-two tolerated the heat.

Clem sees Marie-Claire and Lily. Lily is holding a snow cone, the blue kind, the blue that stains the lips and the tongue and the fingers, the staining being the snow cone's gift, the gift of the artificial color that is the fair's color palette, the blues and the reds and the yellows and the greens that are the colors of the food and the rides and the lights, the colors that are not the parish's natural colors (which are green and brown and blue, the soybeans and the soil and the sky) but the parish's fair colors, the colors of the one week when the parish is not working but playing, the playing being the fair's purpose, the purpose that justifies the fifteen acres and the metal barn and the carnival from Shreveport.

Marie-Claire watches Lily. The watching is the mother's work at the fair, the work being the monitoring, the monitoring being: Where is the child? Is the child safe? Is the child happy? The three questions that the mother asks continuously, the asking being the care, the care being constant, the constancy being the motherhood, the motherhood being Marie-Claire's primary practice, more important than the goats, more important than the brush clearing, the motherhood being the thing that organizes her days the way the veterinary practice organizes Clem's.

Lily is happy. The happiness is visible. The happiness is the blue lips and the wide eyes and the hand that holds the snow cone and the other hand that holds Marie-Claire's hand, the holding of the mother's hand being the child's anchor, the anchor that allows the excitement, the excitement being possible because the anchor is there, the child secure enough to be excited, the security being the mother's gift.

The livestock show begins at 7 PM. The show arena is a small ring, maybe fifty by eighty feet, with bleachers on three sides and the judge's table on the fourth. The ring is dirt, the same dirt that the fairgrounds are built on, the same alluvial soil that the river deposited, the same soil that grows the soybeans and the cotton and that now holds the hoofprints of the show animals, the animals being led into the ring by their exhibitors, the exhibitors being the 4-H kids and the FFA students and the adult exhibitors who show their breeding stock, the showing being the offering, the offering of the animal to the judge's eye, the eye that assesses and the assessing being the judgment and the judgment being the ranking and the ranking being the ribbon.

Jolie leads her steer into the ring. She is wearing the show uniform — white shirt, dark jeans, boots, the uniform that every 4-H exhibitor wears, the uniformity being the equalizer, the clothes the same so that the animal is the focus, the focus being the point, the point being: Judge the animal, not the exhibitor, judge the product, not the producer, though the product is the producer's work and the work is visible in the product, visible the way Clem's work is visible in the health of the animals he treats, the health being the evidence of the care.

The judge is a woman from Rapides Parish, a cattle producer and a certified livestock judge who has judged fairs across Louisiana for twenty years, the judging being her practice, her version of the veterinary practice, her hands on the animals and her eyes on the conformation and her knowledge applied to the assessment, the assessment being the ranking, the ranking being the ribbons — Grand Champion, Reserve Champion, the class winners — the ribbons that the kids will hang on their bedroom walls and that the parents will photograph and that the photographs will be posted on Facebook and that the postings will be the parish's social media portrait of itself, the portrait that says: Look at what our children have raised. Look at what our children have done. Look at the care.

Jolie's steer places second in his class. Reserve Champion in the heavyweight division. Jolie's face when the judge announces it is the face of a fourteen-year-old who has worked for six months and who has been told that the work was good, and the telling is the ribbon, the ribbon being the red rosette that she clips to the steer's halter, the rosette being the symbol, the symbol being the recognition, and the recognition is what the fair provides, the fair being the parish's mechanism for recognizing the work that happens on the farms, the work that is invisible the rest of the year, the daily feeding and watering and caring that no one sees because the no one is everyone, everyone doing the same work on their own farms, the sameness making the work invisible the way the ubiquitous is always invisible, and the fair makes it visible, the fair brings the work into the ring and says: Look. This is what the parish does. This is what the parish raises. This is what the parish offers.

The offering is livestock. The offering is cattle and hogs and goats and sheep and poultry, the animals that the parish raises for the market, the market being the economy, the economy being the money that the animals bring when they are sold, the selling being the purpose of the raising, the raising being the work, the work being the care.

But the offering is also the care itself. The offering is the daily attention that the raising requires. The offering is the 4-H kid waking at 5 AM to feed the steer before school. The offering is the FFA student spending Saturday afternoons halter-breaking the heifer, walking the heifer around the paddock, again and again, the walking being the training, the training being the patience, the patience being the thing the fair rewards when the judge pins the ribbon on the halter.

The offering is the parish's primary industry. Not soybeans. Not cotton. Not the timber or the natural gas or the catfish farms. The primary industry is care. The care of animals. The care of the land. The care of the people who care for the animals and the land. The care that is the work and the work is the parish and the parish is the fair and the fair is the offering.

Clem walks through the livestock barn after the show. The barn is quieter now, the show done, the ribbons awarded, the exhibitors settling their animals for the night, the animals bedded in shavings in their pens, the pens that will be their home for the three days of the fair, the three days being the public phase of the six months of private work, the six months compressed into three days of showing and judging and watching and being watched.

The kids are with their animals. This is the fair's other tradition — the kids sleep in the barn with their animals. They bring sleeping bags and pillows and they sleep in the shavings beside their calves and their hogs, the sleeping-beside being the final act of the project, the act that says: I am with my animal, I am responsible for my animal, the responsibility does not end when the show ends, the responsibility continues through the night, the night being the time when the animal is vulnerable and the exhibitor is the protector and the protecting is the care.

Clem checks the animals one more time. An evening inspection. He walks the aisle, pen by pen, checking the animals for signs of stress or illness, the stress of the transport and the new environment and the proximity to other animals being the risk, the risk that the inspection is meant to mitigate. The animals are fine. The animals are bedded and watered and fed and the kids are beside them and the being-beside is the care and the care is the mitigation.

He stops at Jolie's pen. The steer is lying down, chewing cud, the cud-chewing being the sign of a content ruminant, the content ruminant being the goal, the goal achieved. Jolie is sitting on a bale of shavings, her phone in her hand, the ribbon pinned to the pen's gate, the red rosette catching the barn's fluorescent light.

"You did good work," Clem said.

"Thank you, Dr. Boudreaux," Jolie said. And the thank-you was the acknowledgment, the acknowledgment of the veterinarian's role in the project, the role being: the vaccinations and the deworming and the feeding program and the advice and the presence, the presence of the veterinarian in the project's life the way the presence of the veterinarian is in the parish's life, constantly, steadily, the presence that is the practice.

Clem leaves the barn. He walks through the midway. The lights are still on, the rides still turning, the music still playing from the speakers that the carnival company has mounted on poles around the midway, the music being the fair's soundtrack, the country music and the pop music and the particular sound of a carnival at night in Louisiana, the sound that is the sound of a parish entertaining itself, the parish's annual permission to stop working and start playing, the permission that the fair grants.

He finds Renee. She is at the library's booth — the Vidalia Community Library has a booth at the fair, a table with books for sale (donated books, the duplicates and the excess from the donations, sold for fifty cents each) and a sign-up sheet for library cards, the booth being Renee's outreach, the outreach being: The library is here. The library is part of the fair. The library is part of the parish.

They walk the midway together. They eat funnel cakes. The funnel cakes are dusted with powdered sugar and the sugar gets on their clothes and the getting-on is the fair's mark, the mark that says: I was at the fair, I ate the funnel cake, the funnel cake's sugar being the evidence of the participation.

They drive home. The fairgrounds are behind them, the lights visible in the rearview mirror, the lights being the fair's glow, the glow that is visible from a mile away, the glow that is the parish's night-light, the light that says: We are here, we are gathered, we are showing what we have raised, we are offering what we have cared for, the offering being the livestock and the care and the children and the ribbons and the snow cones and the funnel cakes and the music and the lights.

The fair will last three more days. Clem will inspect every morning. He will check the animals. He will be the veterinarian, the presence, the hands that touch the animals and confirm the health that the care has produced. And on the last day, the animals will be loaded and the trailers will pull away and the fairgrounds will be empty again, the fifteen acres returned to the nothing that is the rest, the rest that will last eleven months until the next fair, the next gathering, the next offering.

The fair is the parish. The parish is the care. The care is the offering.

Clem drives home. Renee beside him. The fair's glow in the mirror. The parish's night. The levee in the dark. The river in the dark. The cattle in the barns and the pastures. The goats in the brush. The horses in the shade. The children sleeping beside their project animals in the barn at the fairgrounds, sleeping in the shavings, the ribbons pinned to the gates, the care evident in the sleeping-beside.

The parish sleeps. The fair glows. The offering continues.